In an industrial process, for example a continuous forging operation, workpieces must be continuously feed to the forging apparatus. Each workpiece may be a metal billet that is, for example, cylindrically shaped. Workpieces, also referred to as a slugs or blanks, may be cut from a long length of feedstock. Typically the cutting operation is not integrated into the forging production line. For example the feedstock cutting apparatus may deposit the cut workpieces into a collecting container. The workpieces then need to be picked from the container, properly oriented and fed to the forging apparatus. These steps may be manually performed. There are also workpiece step feeders that lift a row of billets on a step or ledge from a collection of billets at the bottom of a bin and deliver them to a conveyor for transport to forging apparatus. Disadvantages of a step feeder is that a step or ledge does not generally pick up a highly populated row of workpieces, and the quantity of workpieces that are disoriented as they seat upon a step is relatively high. Therefore the number of properly oriented billets that exit from a step feeder in a given period of time is less than an optimum delivery rate.
One object of the present invention is to provide an automated handling system for multiple workpieces that will deliver properly oriented workpieces with an improved rate of delivery.